Cyberwar's eerie echoes of the A-bomb race

CONFIRMATION that the US was behind a 2010 cyberattack on Iran means the world has officially entered a new era of warfare, one with strong parallels to the secret race to build the atomic bomb and its world-changing aftermath.

The New York Times reports how the US and Israel developed the malicious Stuxnet software and deployed it to attack Iran's nuclear facility at Natanz. It contained malware targeting specific industrial control systems - of the type that run the centrifuges used to enrich uranium at the plant.

Over the past decade, US experts have strenuously warned of the ominous possibility of other nations, "rogue states" or terrorists attacking US infrastructure through the internet. As it happens, however, it is the US that has developed malicious software and launched it against another country.

The parallels with the invention and first use of atomic bombs against Japan are eerie. First, government and scientific leaders invent a new kind of weapon out of fear that others will develop it first and threaten the US. Second, the consequences of use - both the material damage it might cause as well as its effects on international security and arms-race dynamics - are poorly understood. Third, scientists and engineers warn political and military leaders about the dangers and call for international cooperation to create rules of the road. Fourth, despite many warnings by experts, the US government continues to develop this new class of weaponry, unleashing it without warning and without public discussion of its implications for peace and security.

And so this may be another watershed moment when, as Albert Einstein put it in the post-war period: "Everything has changed save our way of thinking, and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe."

During the second world war, the Allies feared that Germany would be the first to create an atomic bomb, with disastrous consequences for civilisation. So, in utmost secrecy, the US and the UK mobilised their scientists and engineers to develop the first bombs. In the end, Germany did not come close to producing a nuclear weapon. Perhaps US fears had been overstated. But the major goal was achieved: the Allies won the race to harness atomic energy in a bomb. Though instead of declaring game over, American political leaders decided to use it to bring the war against Japan to an end.

Even before the first test detonation, however, scientists at the University of Chicago expressed their agonised reservations about using the bomb against civilians. Physicist and Nobel laureate James Franck and others foretold the dangers of an atomic arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. In a memo dated April 1945 intended for President Harry S. Truman, they reasoned that the only way to prevent such a dangerous future was to place atomic energy under international control.

The United Nations was just forming at the time and could serve, they believed, as the custodian of the nuclear weapons technology and material. Unfortunately, the warnings were not heeded. The atomic bombs dropped on Japan caused unprecedented destruction, and the nuclear arms race officially began when the Soviet Union tested its bomb in 1949.

Just as some scientists tried in vain to warn of the consequences of a first use of atomic weapons and an ensuing arms race based on nationalism and fear, so today's independent scientists and engineers have warned of the perils of cyberwarfare.

Unfortunately, once again, the warnings have fallen on deaf ears. And again the US has acted despite the misgivings of experts, becoming the first state to successfully use malware against another nation.

In the case of cyberweapon attacks, it is also very hard at this early stage to predict how much damage could be inflicted on societies. While malware might not cause the immediate horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the ensuing chaos from bringing down, for example, air-traffic control systems, electrical grids and financial markets would cause widespread damage, hardship and even death. We have come to know how nuclear weapons can destroy societies. We have not yet begun to understand how cyberwarfare might destroy our way of life.

We do know, however, that the US has much to lose if unrestrained cyberattack capabilities were to spread around the world. In fact, it is so highly dependent on information and communication technology in every sector of its society that the US may be more vulnerable than other countries. That's why we need vigorous public discussion about these new weapons. The stakes are too high to leave decisions in the hands of military and intelligence officers, or behind the closed doors of the situation room in the White House.

In 1945, atomic scientists determined that only international control of nuclear energy could prevent a global arms race. In yet another parallel, computer scientists and engineers have also called for international cooperation to establish institutions to control cybertechnology and protocols to prevent a new kind of arms race.

Unfortunately, these recommendations have not been heeded, and once more political leaders appear all too eager to deploy a new and very dangerous class of weapon.

How ironic that the first known military use of cyberwarfare is ostensibly to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons: a new age of mass destruction will begin in an effort to close a chapter from the first age of mass destruction.

Kennette Benedict is the executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. This article is adapted from her column in the Bulletin

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